WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Thad Cochran, R-Miss., today joined a bipartisan push to provide immediate relief from the soaring flood insurance rate hikes that threaten to make flood protection unaffordable for thousands of Mississippi homeowners and businesses.

Wicker and Cochran are among 24 Senators who are asking Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to support delaying aspects of the Bigger-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act that are resulting in unaffordable flood insurance premiums.  The Senators sent a letter that urges the Senate leaders to use any viable legislation as a vehicle for passing provisions to suspend the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) rate hikes.

“Reform of the National Flood Insurance Program is an absolute necessity for the many Mississippians who depend on it,” Wicker said. “Adjustment of premiums that accurately reflect the risk of flooding faced by insured properties is central to the effort.  However, rate increases that are literally unaffordable in some cases will end up doing net harm to the program, policyholders, and taxpayers when at-risk homes and businesses go without coverage.  A brief delay to study the effects of premium increases and look for less harmful approaches is entirely appropriate.”

“It is reasonable to stop and give the FEMA, Congress and the public time to assess more carefully whether this is truly the best policy for our economy,” Cochran said.  “Some of the reforms passed last year are necessary to ensure the long term viability of the National Flood Insurance Program.  However, the manner in which those reforms are being implemented is alienating the very people the program is intended to help and may actually make the program less solvent in the long run.  The new insurance rates penalizes citizens, who have followed the rules, and places the heaviest burden on those who are just now recovering from recent disasters.”

A temporary delay, the Senators wrote, would also allow the Federal Emergency Management Agency to complete an affordability study that was required in the 2012 flood insurance reform law.  FEMA only recently embarked on this study.  Additionally, a March 2013 study by the National Academies of Science (NAS) raised serious questions about the validity of the technologies and methodologies FEMA is currently using to assess risk.

“Although these homeowners and businesses built to code and played by the rules, their premiums could go from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands of dollars because of the rate reforms included in Biggert-Waters.  While we continue to work together for a comprehensive and fiscally responsible legislative solution, it is imperative that we provide immediate rate relief for impacted policyholders, and we request the inclusion of these provisions in any viable legislative vehicle that may be available,” the letter states.

Among the other Senators who also signed the letter are Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), and David Vitter (R-La.).